My posts usually go live early in the morning, but I’m actually just sitting here now writing this one. haha. So if you follow me on IG or FB you know that I decided last minute to TRY and make this Snow White Dress for Abigail – 5 pm the evening BEFORE our trip to Disneyland the next day. Yes, I’m a special kind of crazy! lol

Usually when I make these cosplay’s I try to make them as close to the cartoon version as possible, so I spent a good 40 minutes trying to figure out the sleeves of the original Snow White dress, I couldn’t tell if they were appliqués or patches or if it was gathered or what, and then it hit me! I COULD JUST PLEAT THEM!! So pleated them I did! And look just how lovely and perfect they come out! I cut the original blue sleeve in 3 parts, starting at the middle and then again on the sides 2 inches apart. Then I added two inch red strips between the blues.

By this time it as already 7 pm so I looked through my stash to see if I could find patterns I could combine to help me create the bodice and skirt of the dress. I found the bottom half of the Magrath Dress pattern piece and I decide to just trace one of her t-shirts with a scooped front to create the front bodice. (Sorry no pictures as I wasn’t even thinking to stop and take a picture at this point)

The bodice came out just as I wanted. I used some of the yellow to create a strap and used that for the for yellow line down the middle.

I second guessed trying to make the high collar for the dress, 1. because I didn’t think i had time to spend drafting one and 2. I didn’t think I had time to figure out how I’d make it work with an invisible zipper. But …like I said, I must be special kind of crazy because I spent time doing both those things! haha

Drafting the collar was easy, figuring out how to install it in while keeping an invisible zipper and lined bodice was the tricky part.

It took MOST of my time, but I finally made it work! Sorry no pictures of that, but I will try my best to explain. By the way, I did used some heavy weight fusible stabilizer to give the collar that stiffness. Now since I wanted both the collar and the bodice lined, and since I wanted to use an invisible zipper (and I really hate that I didn’t have a white zipper of any kind, but it was about midnight at this point and there was really no way I could go get one), I needed to attached the collar to the bodice and treat that as a whole. So I had a collar and bodice main sewn together to make one piece and a collar and bodice lining sewn together to make one piece, and then I just installed the invisible zipper as you would in a lined garment.

I found the same skirt pattern piece I did for Abigails Little Mermaid Dress, and added 2 inches to the length. The bodice is actually topstiched down unto the skirt. This gets tricky near the zipper but it helped that I trimmed off some of the zipper teeth just enough to fold under and went over it with a needle used for heavy weight denim. I really hope all of that made sense! lol Again, it was such a rushed project from 5pm to 3 am to be exact, next time I’ll think twice before attempting something so crazy because I’m still trying to catch up on sleep! haha.

It was all worth it though, because she absolutely loved the dress!

Really love how awesome these sleeves came out!

And of course the day wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t take a picture with Snow White.

And that’s it for today guys! I hope this post made sense as far as the sleeve and collar construction especially since my posts are usually a lot more detailed and contain a ton more pictures (but remember, I was on a time crunch to get this done by morning). When I knock some more committed projects off my plate I’ll spend some time trying to redo the elements for a better explanation, until then I hope this at least gave you a little insight.

Thank you so much for this great tutorial! Your daughter looks so happy and beautiful in your dress! I used your tutorial to make the sleeves for my daughter’s Snow White costume. It was an extra step but it really makes the dress more complete!

Gorgeous! This turned out so much better than the store bought costume. It’s early October… so even with no sewing experience at all I can figure out how to make this for my one year old by Halloween, right? And the rest of the Snow White entourage for the whole family? see what you’ve done, now I’m going to attempt to make it all myself! Haha. Thanks for sharing!